Claire Cole, who is working in India temporarily, blogs about the politics of the policies that restrict the legality of elections of representatives based on the number of children they have.

At the first take, the policy is offensive because of its disempowerment of the very people who were supposed to be being empowered to lead. With one hand, the national government recognized years of discrimination and sought to right it by creating political leadership opportunity for these people. With the other hand, state governments took that power and opportunity away, reinstating the oppression, by creating the Two Child Norm policy. As I speak to average Indians on the street, I hear a range of opinions—some, as in the U.S., are in touch with the social justice implications of such a law and are duly offended by it. Others—and by no means a small number of them—believe firmly in the idea of a punitive two child norm, and argue that it is important for elected leaders at the local level to set a good example for their communities with regard to family size, because this is the only way that replacement-level fertility will be achieved in impoverished India. They argue that if these women, Dalits, and adivasis were actually worth their salt as leaders with integrity, then they would just adhere to the norm instead of insisting on having “sprawling” families.

That last bit about “worth their salt” sounds so familiar…